The Heart Attack Grill is an Americanhamburger restaurant in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It makes a point of serving food that is very high in fat, sugar, and cholesterol; in other words, food that, if eaten regularly, would cause a heart attack, hence the name.
Theme and menu
The establishment is a hospital theme restaurant: waitresses and waiters take orders from the customers. Each patient dons a hospital gown and wrist band before ordering and those who do not finish their meal receive a paddling by one of the "nurses" with the option to buy the paddle afterwards. The menu is generally themed around items that are exceptionally high in calories and fat. It includes "Single", "Double", "Triple", "Quadruple", all the way up to "Octuple Bypass" hamburgers, ranging from of beef, all-you-can-eat "Flatliner Fries", beer and tequila, "butterfat milkshakes," and soft drinks such as Mexican-bottled Coca-Cola made with cane sugar. Customers can also order cigarettes, or candy cigarettes for children. Customers over in weight eat for free if they weigh in with a nurse waitress before eating. Beverages and to-go orders are excluded and sharing food is also not allowed for the free food deal. One of the restaurant's promotions is a reward for customers who finish a Triple or Quadruple Bypass Burger, after which they are placed on a wheelchair and wheeled out to their vehicle by their "personal nurse".
History
The Heart Attack Grill was founded in 2005 in Tempe, Arizona, by Jon Basso, with the declared intent of serving "nutritional pornography," food "so bad for you it's shocking." The idea came when writing a marketing thesis about fitness training studios, as he became inspired by stories about his clients cheating on their diets. The Arizona location closed on May 31, 2011, with a Heart Attack Grill opening in Dallas, Texas earlier that month. The Dallas restaurant closed in October 2011 due to non-payment of rent, and the restaurant's official website was scrubbed of any Dallas location information. The Las Vegas location opened in October 2011.
Illnesses and deaths
The restaurant's spokesman, Blair River, died on March 1, 2011, aged 29, from complications of pneumonia. The Arizona location closed shortly thereafter, on May 31, 2011. On February 11, 2012, a customer suffered what was reported to be an apparent heart attack while eating a "Triple Bypass Burger" at the restaurant. Restaurant owner Jon Basso called 9-1-1 and the customer was taken to the hospital. Reportedly patrons thought it was a stunt and started taking photos. Basso later said, "I actually felt horrible for the gentleman because the tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that." On April 21, 2012, a woman fell unconscious while eating a Double Bypass Burger, drinking alcohol, and smoking. In February 2013, an unofficial spokesman and daily patron, 52-year-old John Alleman, died of an apparent heart attack while waiting at a bus stop in front of the restaurant.
Reception
Heart Attack Grill has deliberately courted controversy as a marketing strategy. The restaurant has been criticized and drawn complaints for its breastaurant-style portrayal of nurses. The Quadruple Bypass Burger with consists of four half-pound beef patties, twenty strips of bacon, eight slices of American cheese, a whole tomato and half an onion served in a bun coated with lard. The restaurant was featured on an episode of Extreme Pig-outs on the Travel Channel, All You Can Eat on The History Channel, World's Weirdest Restaurants on Food Network Canada, ABC News, on a CBS report with Bill Geist, on Khawatir 10 on MBC, on 7 Deadly Sins on Showtime, on the pilot episode on Fluffy Breaks Even and The Kyle Files.
